Last Stand
by JacksAreWild
Summary: Fifteen years after the end of the Reaper War, and life hasn't exactly been "happily ever after" for Jeff "Joker" Moreau and Samantha Shepard. When a force from their past threatens their daughter, Hope, can they work together to save her – and maybe their future, as well? Sequel to "Why Don't You and I?" *cover art used with permission of blackdragon21*
1. Chapter 1

**Last Stand**

_"I'm all alone_

_You're far away_

_Never learned from my mistakes"_

* * *

**Tiptree - Present Day**

"Hey, I was gonna sneak out tonight and meet a bunch of the guys at the Radial," Hope Shepard Moreau whispered conspiratorially to her cousin, and best friend, Lucy, as she closed her locker. "Wanna come?"

"Um, I'm already grounded for the rest of my life, so I think I'll pass. Plus, I can't drink, anyway," Lucy noted, glumly, as they started down the crowded hallway toward their next classroom.

"Oh, yeah." Lucy had just discovered a few weeks ago that she was pregnant. It wasn't a terribly happy time around the Ryderson household. "Sorry."

"How are you gonna get out, anyway?" Lucy asked, dodging around a student hurrying in the other direction. "Where's your mom gonna be?"

"Get this – she and my dad are going out to dinner!"

"Really? Are they getting back together?"

"Who the hell knows?" Hope muttered as they wove their way through the throngs of boisterous adolescents. She was fed up with her parents and their drama. Who'd ever heard of people who were separated, but still married, going on a date? It was ridiculous.

"They're never gonna let you in there, you know," Lucy informed her, pulling her back to the present conversation.

"Kristie says that they hacked a fake ID for me."

"Well, you'd better be careful. If you get busted, everyone's gonna know about it."

Hope understood what her cousin meant. Her whole life, she'd lived in the shadow of her parents' accomplishments. People always treated her differently once they knew who she was. Her one saving grace was that, due to a clerical error, Shepard had been noted on her birth certificate as her middle name - Shepard Moreau, rather than Shepard-Moreau. Her parents had never bothered to fix it, so she was sometimes able to get away with going by Hope Moreau.

Her dad was a hero, but her mother was a goddamn legend.

Still, everyone on Tiptree knew her family. It was a small colony. Two weeks from her 16th birthday, and she'd never had a real boyfriend. Most guys were too afraid to ask her out. Parents who considered assault rifles to be everyday accessories were not good for your social life.

But lately, she'd started hanging with a different crowd. She'd always been a decent athlete, and a good student, but she'd been moving in the same social circles since grammar school. One day, when she'd been feeling particularly glum and antisocial, she'd ducked under the bleachers during gym class. To her surprise, there'd been a boy she'd vaguely recognized tucked away in the shadows. The scent of marijuana - a requisite crop for all human colonies - had floated to her on the breeze, and she'd hesitated, debating whether or not to stay.

"Hey," he'd drawled, acknowledging her presence with a casual nod. "Want a hit?"

After a brief deliberation, she'd stepped forward and taken the offering from his outstretched hand. He'd watched her intently as she'd raised it to her lips and inhaled tentatively. She'd immediately begun coughing violently and had handed the joint back to him, tears streaming from her eyes.

"First time?" he'd asked with a hint of amusement, blue eyes sparkling. She'd nodded, unable to speak. She'd thought that he was a year ahead of her – in the same grade as Lucy's boyfriend, Jason. He'd been cute – tall and lanky, with dark hair that flopped over his forehead. He'd worn black jeans, along with a t-shirt and sneakers. "You're Hope, right?"

Regaining her voice, she'd wheezed, "Yeah," while swiping the moisture from her cheeks. She'd liked that he'd just said "Hope," not "Hope Shepard" or, god forbid, "Shepard's kid."

"I'm Zach."

"Hi." Boy, she was really outdoing herself with the sparkling conversation here. "Um...you're a junior, right?"

"Yeah. Why, have you noticed me?" he'd teased, eyes twinkling as he'd regarded her.

She'd blushed and ducked her head. "My cousin, Lucy, goes out with Jason Merrill. He's in your grade."

"Mmm." He'd taken another hit off of the joint and she'd watched, fascinated, as he'd held his breath for what had seemed like forever before pinching off the end and tucking it into his pocket, finally releasing the smoke in a puff. "Well, I gotta go. Don't want to be late for class," he'd said, not really sounding like he cared too much one way or the other. "See you around, Hope."

"Yeah, see ya," she'd said, watching as he'd emerged from the darkness into the light, slinking across the field. He'd moved with an almost feline grace, and she'd recalled how he'd already known her name.

She'd wondered if maybe she'd finally met someone who'd have the balls to go out with her, after all.

After that, she'd run into Zach a few times, and he'd invited her to hang out with him. Jason was casually acquainted with some of Zach's friends, and Jason and Lucy had gone with Hope to a party at Kristie's house before the big pregnancy fiasco. Hope had been trying to determine if Zach was interested in her or not, with little success. He had a naturally flirty manner around girls, so it was impossible to tell if he really liked her, or if he was just being Zach.

But tonight's outing was going to be a big deal. The Radial was the most popular bar on Tiptree, right near the spaceport. People from all over the galaxy passed through there. It had a questionable reputation and was notorious for its fights, drugs and prostitution. Kristie's cousin had hacked them some fake ID's, and she swore that no one would question their authenticity. Hope was excited and terrified, all at once. She knew that she would be in big trouble if the ID didn't work, but she was determined that tonight would be the night that she would make her move on Zach, once and for all. If he rejected her, then at least she could stop wasting time thinking about him.

"Don't worry, I'll be careful," she promised Lucy, as they squeezed through the door into the classroom, just ahead of the warning bell.

"Yeah, that's what I said, too," Lucy whispered back, mournfully, as they slid into the last two desks in the back of the room, across the row from each other. Her hand slid to cover her still - for now - flat abdomen. "And look how _that_ turned out."

* * *

Later that night, Hope was watching her mother rush around in a tizzy and wishing that she would just hurry up and leave, already.

"Does this look all right?" Sam asked her, for what seemed like the millionth time.

Her mother tugged nervously at the simple black dress that hugged her lithe form and swirled gently above her knees. Her hair was pulled into a loose knot, and tendrils wisped around her face, framing brilliant emerald eyes. Hope had green eyes, too, but they were darker, like her father's. Hope thought that her mother was effortlessly beautiful, and she hated her just a little bit for it. Nothing was effortless when you were a teenager.

"What difference does it make?" she huffed, impatiently. "You're only going out with Dad! I think he knows what you look like by now."

"Hope," her mom chided, gently.

"What? This whole thing is stupid."

Sam stopped fidgeting and studied her daughter. "Does it bother you that I'm going out to dinner with your dad?"

"No!" Hope retorted, squirming under her mother's penetrating gaze. "I just don't understand why you're making such a big deal out of it."

Hope felt a little guilty when she saw the hurt look flit across her face. "Sorry," Sam said. "I didn't realize I was doing that."

Hope sighed inwardly. She was nervous about tonight, and it wasn't even a real date. She supposed she should cut her mom some slack. "You look great, Mom. Really."

Sam's lips quirked in the half-smile that Hope knew so well. "Right. And by that, you mean – 'Stop bothering me and get the hell out of here!'" She reached for her purse and coat. "Is Lucy coming over?"

"Um, I'm not sure," Hope said, heart racing with the subterfuge. She'd never lied to her parents about anything this big before. "She's still grounded."

"Oh, right. Well, if you decide to go over there instead, just let me know, okay?"

Her mother's blind faith made the guilt twist a little deeper. Her folks had always trusted her, and she was about to betray that trust in a huge way. But she couldn't miss out on this night - it was too important.

"I will," she replied.

"Okay. I love you, honey," Sam said, leaning over and planting a kiss on her forehead. "I won't be too late."

"Mom!"

"Okay, okay, I'm going!" Her mom swept from the room, trailing the faint scent of vanilla and coconut in her wake. Hope heard the front door slide open and closed, and she heaved a sigh.

She'd give her mom a ten minute head start, and then she was out of here.

* * *

It was almost an hour later by the time she reached the Radial. She'd gotten confused about the tram schedule, and had taken the wrong line. She'd seen Zach before she'd left school that day, and he'd offered to pick her up, but she'd been worried that he would show up before her mom left, so she'd refused. Before departing the house, she'd considered taking a cab, but she hadn't known how much it would cost, and she'd been afraid that she wouldn't have enough credits. She had a student pass for all the public transport on Tiptree, but she wasn't used to coming this far outside of the colony limits.

Now she was almost a half hour late meeting her friends, and she had three messages from Zach asking where she was. She was thrilled that he seemed so eager to see her, and worried that he was going to get tired of waiting and find some other girl to entertain him. He had a notoriously short attention span when it came to company of the female persuasion.

As she walked across the crowded parking lot, she messaged him:

_I'm here. Finally._

The reply came instantly:

_Be right out._

She loitered awkwardly, feeling conspicuous. She was nervous about using the fake ID, and relieved that Zach was coming out to meet her and escort her inside.

Her heart skipped a beat as she saw him emerge from the building and glance around, searching for her. His lanky legs were clad in faded blue jeans, which he wore with a black, button-down shirt. His tousled mop of dark hair ruffled in the breeze. She noticed that he looked older than usual - almost as if he belonged here. Hope raised her hand in greeting as they walked towards each other, meeting about six meters from the entrance.

"Hey," he said, with a welcoming smile. "You made it."

"Yeah. Sorry I'm so late."

"That's okay. You look great, by the way," he said, looking her over, appreciatively. Hope had pulled her long, straight, mahogany hair into a sleek ponytail that hung down her back. She'd painstakingly applied makeup to highlight her eyes and smooth her pale, freckled complexion, and she wore skin-tight blue jeans, an amethyst halter top of silky material, and black high-heeled boots that she'd borrowed from her mother. Despite all the effort she'd put into her appearance, she still blushed at the compliment and glanced away as he took her hand, guiding her away from the front door and around the side of the building.

"Where are we going?" she asked when she realized that they were headed away from the entrance.

"I had Kristie prop open the rear door," he explained, intertwining his fingers with hers as they picked their way through the broken glass and litter lining the dim corridor between the bar and the fence that separated it from the neighboring airstrip. "The ID's worked, but the bouncer was acting suspicious. I thought it would be easier to just sneak you in the back."

"I don't know," Hope said, balking as they reached the corner at the rear of the club and pulling Zach to a halt beside her. "I really, _really_ can't get caught sneaking in."

He turned to face her, raising his free hand to gently caress her cheek. Hope could hear her heart pounding in her ears. "Hey," he said, softly. "I won't let anything bad happen to you, I promise. Trust me?"

Hope's stomach did a somersault at his touch, the spicy scent of his cologne overriding the offensive stench emanating from the alley. She found herself nodding weakly, willing to agree to anything in that moment just to remain close to him. He slowly leaned closer, clasping her other hand and lowering his face to hers, and she was so enthralled by his presence that she almost missed the rustling emerging from the darkness behind her.

As she started to rotate her head to investigate the sound, she noticed that rather than looking at her, Zach's gaze was fixed on a spot somewhere over her left shoulder. "Do it!" he hissed, tightening his grip to prevent her from turning. Confused, she twisted in his arms, trying to see the person he was addressing.

A voice drifted from out of the gloom. "I...I can't! _Hold her still!_" The unidentified presence sounded young, male, and almost as panicked as she felt, but that fact didn't provide any comfort.

Hope was struggling in earnest now, but Zach only squeezed harder, his grasp utterly unyielding. "Do it _now_!" he ordered, in a cold tone she didn't recognize. In the fleeting stillness, Hope felt something sharp prick the skin of her upper arm, and she cried out in a breathy gasp.

Releasing one of her hands, Zach spun her around and clamped a palm over her mouth to muffle the sound, his fingers digging painfully into her face. Now facing her unknown assailant, she felt a pleasant warmth begin to spread through her body as two terrified, pale blue eyes appeared before her, shrouded in shadow and seeming to actually glow in the darkness.

The illusion was mesmerizing, momentarily freezing her in place, until she realized that the strength was fleeing her limbs and the corners of her vision were narrowing. A surge of panic shook her from her from her stupor, and she tried to scream - but Zach's hand muffled the sound.

"Just relax, Hope," Zach whispered silkily in her ear. "I promise to take good care of you."

The incandescent blue eyes floated before her as she went limp and everything faded to black.

* * *

**A/N: **Only a year and a half after the ending of "Why Don't You and I?" and I'm finally posting the first chapter of the sequel. To be fair, I have been working on it sporadically, but the story itself is much more daunting than anything I've ever written, and I was leery of making another long-term commitment if I couldn't honor it. So, please - if you like the story and want to read more, let me know. Your feedback is my motivation. I will try to update once or twice a month. As always, my thanks to jay8008, for tearing my work apart in order to make it better; and, to Midnight Blackened, for her countless sexy images of Joker that motivate me in an entirely different way (check her out on deviantart at Midnight-Blackened.) My undying gratitude, also, to blackdragon21, for providing the cover art for this story long before she'd even seen any proof that it actually existed, or was any good. I hope it turns out to be worth the wait. ~Jacks


	2. Chapter 2

Jeff Moreau paced nervously around the foyer of the fanciest restaurant on Tiptree - which, to be honest, wasn't saying much. Their reservation was for 19:00, and even though it was only 19:05, he was growing restless. Had something happened? Had Sam changed her mind about meeting him? Five more minutes passed, and he was just about to try her comm when she swept through the entryway.

"Sorry I'm late! I took too long getting ready, and then I couldn't find a place to park..."

"And then you had to fight your way through the throng of paparazzi desperate to record your every movement?" Jeff cut in with his trademark smirk, the glib remark smoothly glossing over his earlier concerns.

"Right. And I couldn't just blast my way through, 'cause this purse is too small to hold my Carnifex," Sam explained with a breathless grin, anxiously tucking an errant lock of hair behind her ear.

"Here, let me take your coat," Jeff offered, signalling to the hostess that they were ready to be seated. "It was well worth the wait," he informed her, as Sam removed the lightweight, slate-grey trench, and he surveyed her outfit, appreciatively. "You look great."

They followed the hostess, single-file, as she led them through the crowded restaurant to their table. "Thanks. So do you," Sam observed, sincerely, as they wove their way between the well-coiffed diners. Jeff wore black pants and a teal button-down shirt, open at the neck. It accentuated his jade eyes, which she'd always thought to be one of his best features. He'd done away with his omnipresent beard a few years ago, when it had become speckled with grey, but some of the lighter hairs still dotted his temples and sideburns. Laugh lines graced the corners of his eyes and mouth, giving him a softer look than he'd had in his youth. It really wasn't fair. She had to work twice as hard just to look presentable as she aged, while her husband seemingly became more attractive with every passing year.

Jeff held her chair for her, draping her jacket over the back, and Sam accepted the gesture with a grateful smile. They perused the wine menu, selecting one of their favorites. When the waiter arrived, Jeff ordered a bottle.

"Oh, wait...are you supposed to be drinking?" Sam asked, as their server departed. As Jeff's grin quickly faded, she hurriedly continued, "Sorry, I'm not trying to start an argument. I just wasn't sure..."

"No, it's okay," Jeff interrupted, composing himself. "It's a fair question. Camille said that since drinking has never been an issue for me before now, that it's okay for me to indulge in moderation, under certain circumstances. She doesn't want me drinking alone, or when I'm angry, or depressed..." he trailed off, having already said more than he'd intended.

"Right," Sam said, softly, giving him an understanding look. Jeff dropped his gaze, embarrassed by her sympathy. But considering all that had happened recently, he supposed it was better than her constant, though justifiable, anger. Fortuitously, the waiter chose that moment to reappear and fill their glasses. When they were once again alone, she asked, "So, how is Camille?"

"She's good. She always asks about you. She said that you can join us for a session anytime you'd like."

Camille had counseled both of them, right after the war. At the time, Sam had been physically and mentally shattered. She'd nearly died while attempting to defeat the Reapers, and had still been confined to the hospital when she'd delivered Hope in the weeks following the final battle. Both her best friend, Garrus, and her mentor, Anderson, had been killed during combat. In shrink-speak, Sam had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as postpartum depression. This had left Jeff with the sole responsibility of caring for a newborn under less-than-ideal conditions. By the time they'd seen Camille, they'd both been at their wit's end. The therapist's patient, yet firm, guidance had allowed them both to acknowledge their grief and rage, and move past it.

Despite all of that, Sam wasn't sure that she was eager to be reacquainted with their former counselor. She and Jeff had been through a lot in the past couple of years and, although she still held out hope for an eventual reconciliation, she felt like it was important that she keep her distance and allow him to work out some of his own issues.

"We'll see," Sam replied, noncommittally, taking a sip of her wine.

They talked a little bit about their respective jobs, and Hope, before the waiter reappeared to take their orders. Sam ordered a seafood pasta in a garlic-butter sauce, and Jeff ordered prime rib with a baked potato. The attentive young man returned at once with two garden salads and a bread basket, and then surreptitiously slipped away.

"So," Jeff said, abruptly, "do you remember our wedding?"

He could tell by Sam's narrowed eyes that he'd once again managed to say exactly the wrong thing.

"Do I remember our wedding? Hmm...let's see," she replied, drumming her fingers on the table. "Do you mean the day that we got married in front of our friends and family? When we vowed to love and respect each other…vows that we've managed to honor pretty well, I might add? The day that I put on this ring," she waggled her finger in the air to illustrate her point as candlelight flashed off the gold band "which I've never removed? That day?"

"Yeah," Jeff sighed, wearily.

"It rings a bell."

"Have you ever heard of a rhetorical question?"

"I have. Have you ever heard of a really bad opening line for a relationship discussion with your estranged wife?"

Jeff winced at the word _estranged_, although he supposed it accurately described what they were to each other now - and growing more so every day. Hence his motivation for suggesting this dinner. "I have _now_."

"Never too late for valuable life lessons," Sam assured him, pointing her fork in his direction for emphasis before taking a bite of her salad.

"May I continue, please?" he inquired, exasperatedly.

She gestured, magnanimously. "By all means."

"Thank you."

But before he could resume his soliloquy, Sam's comm buzzed. "Shit. Sorry," she said, fishing in her purse for the device. "I would have turned it off, but I told Hope to call me if she was going out."

Jeff waved off the apology. The one thing they'd always been able to agree upon was that in their world, Hope came first.

But when Sam looked at the screen, her face immediately drained of color. She stared at it blankly, unable to comprehend what she was seeing there. The sounds and scents of the dining room, so tangible just a moment ago, seemed to recede until they were barely discernible.

"Sam?" Jeff prompted.

The familiar timbre of his voice pierced her stupor and served to galvanize her into action. She leaped to her feet, knocking over her chair. "We have to go."

"What?" Jeff inquired in confusion, rising as well. "But...my prime rib!" he protested, scooping her coat off the floor and hurrying after her, as she strode quickly toward the exit. "Sam, wait..._dammit!_" Dodging a busboy lugging a heavy tray of dirty flatware, Jeff winced as his knee protested the sudden movement. "Sam!"

"Someone..." she began, choking on the words, but never slowing her headlong rush. Limping his way through an awkward half-jog, Jeff finally managed to close the distance enough to reach out and grab her elbow, just before she reached the door.

"Sam!" he pleaded, spinning her around to face him. "What's going on?"

She looked at him, her eyes searching and desperate. When she finally spoke, the words were barely audible. "I think someone took Hope."

* * *

Jeff's breath caught in his throat as he tried to decipher what Sam had just said. Before he could process her words, she was once again off and moving. He caught up to her again out on the street, hovering by the side of her sky car. She was trying to press the button to unlock the door, but her hand was shaking too badly.

"What do you mean, 'someone took Hope?'" Jeff demanded, but Sam didn't respond. She managed to open the vehicle and was about to slide in, but he gently extricated the keys from her trembling grasp.

"I'll drive," he told her, nudging her toward the passenger side. He didn't understand what was happening, but he knew that she was too rattled to navigate safely.

"Where are we going?" he asked, as he pulled away from the restaurant.

"Home," Sam responded, even though it hadn't been his home for a while now. She was already pushing a button on her comm.

"Hope? It's Mom. It's really important that you call me as soon as you get this message, okay? It's an emergency. Call me." She hung up and immediately pressed another button. "Jules? It's Sam. Is Hope there? Have you seen her tonight?" She paused briefly, waiting for a reply. "Can you do me a favor and ask Lucy if she's spoken to her recently? No, I don't know...maybe. Can you just ask her, please?"

Sam fell silent as Jules presumably went to look for Lucy to pose her question. Meanwhile, Jeff had been swooping in and out of traffic, traveling at speeds well beyond the legal limit, and they were already progressing down the street toward their house. Sam leaped from the hovering car and stumbled on her heels as she hit the ground, running for the door before he came to a complete stop. Jeff could hear her inside, calling Hope's name, as he approached the front entry.

"Yeah, I'm here," he heard her say as the door swooshed closed behind him. "She hasn't? Shit. Can I talk to her for a minute, please? Thanks." Jeff followed the sound of Sam's voice into the living room, but by the time he got there, it was empty. Confused, he stopped to listen, and heard her footsteps retreating down the hallway behind him.

"Lucy? It's Aunt Sam. Listen, I need to know if you have any idea where Hope might be." Jeff exited the room back into the foyer as Sam returned from the bedrooms, shaking her head in the negative to indicate she hadn't found their daughter. "Look, I know you don't want to rat her out, but I think she might really be in trouble. If you know where she is, I need to know. Please." She came to a halt in front of Jeff and there was a brief silence while she listened. "The Radial? By the spaceport? Okay. Thanks, Lucy. Thank you."

Sam disconnected and started to move past Jeff on her way back out the door. "We need to go to a bar called the Radial, just outside town." Before she could disappear again, he grasped her arm, just as he had at the restaurant.

"Sam. Please, just slow down for a minute and tell me what's going on. What did you mean when you said that someone took Hope?"

Wordlessly, she held her comm unit out to him. Tearing his eyes from her stricken countenance, Jeff glanced at the screen. What he saw stole the air from his lungs for the second time that evening.

It was a holo message. The lighting was dim, but the subject was clearly Hope. Her eyes were closed, as if she were asleep, or...he quickly dismissed any alternate possibilities from his mind. Only her shoulders and head were visible, but he could see no signs of violence. The caption simply read, "Do you know where your daughter is?" Terror flooded his nervous system, rendering him unable to move, or even think clearly.

"Jeff?" Sam prodded, urgently. "We have to go!"

Abruptly, his brain kicked into gear. "Someone sent this to your personal comm?" he asked, his voice sounding oddly calm to his own ears.

Sam blinked in confusion. "What?"

"This is your _private terminal_?" He gripped her shoulders tightly, willing her to focus.

"Yes."

"Then whoever sent this has your unlisted address. Did you check the source?"

Snatching the device from his hand, she acquired the information. "It was sent from Hope's comm."

Jeff frowned. That made it less likely that this was some kind of elaborate prank, unless Hope was behind it. He knew that she'd been angry with them lately - particularly him - but it wasn't like her to do something this cruel. "Can James get someone to back trace the signal?"

Sam's face lit up. "Good idea!" She was already attempting to contact her friend, and trusted aide, on Earth, as she began shoving him toward the door. "You can drive while I talk. Let's go."

He almost ran into his niece, who was approaching the door as they exited. She skidded to a halt, panting with exertion. He reached out an arm to steady them both as Sam collided with his back, causing him to lurch forward.

"Lucy?" Jeff said. "What are you doing here?"

"Hope," she began, her eyes darting between the two adults. "What happened? Where is she?"

Jeff took a breath, choosing his words carefully. "We're not certain yet that _anything_ has happened."

The teen's eyes narrowed, clearly not buying it. "I'm going with you," she declared, chin jutting out, determinedly.

Jeff exchanged a glance with Sam, who was eyeing them impatiently as she spoke rapidly into her comm. "I don't think that's..."

"I know where the place _is_, and _who_ Hope was going to meet. I can help," she insisted, crossing her arms, defiantly.

Jeff sighed. "Does your mom know you're h-" Lucy was already nodding before he could finish the question.

Sam made a shooing motion with her free hand, urging them to get moving, before sidestepping Jeff and heading for the car. Lucy quickly followed, leaving him standing alone.

"So _this_ is what it feels like to be the passenger," he muttered in resignation, lurching into pursuit so as to not be left behind.


	3. Chapter 3

They were about halfway to their destination when Sam ended her call. Lucy and Jeff had remained quiet during her conversation. "James is going to call in some favors and get a trace on Hope's comm. He'll let us know as soon as he has something."

"Aunt Sam, what's going on?" Lucy's voice was barely audible from the back seat. Instead of replying, Sam passed her the comm with the message she'd received displayed on the screen. The silence dragged on as Lucy studied the image.

"Do you know anything about that picture?" Jeff asked, glancing back at her in the mirror. She was huddled into her oversized sweatshirt, her face masked by shadow, and he couldn't read her expression.

"No," she whispered.

"Do you think Hope would take a picture like that as a joke? To scare us, or just to get our attention?"

Sam glanced at him sharply. The idea had never crossed her mind, and she was far more likely to think their daughter capable of deceit than Jeff. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on his part - a prank was certainly preferable to the alternative. But Lucy's answer was swift and sure. "No. I don't think it's a joke." She handed the comm back to her aunt.

"Who was Hope meeting at this bar tonight?" Sam asked, turning sideways in her seat to look at Lucy.

The girl hesitated. Despite her obvious concern for her cousin, it was clear Lucy still felt guilty about breaking the teenage code of silence. "She's been hanging with these kids from school...one of them has a cousin who's a prog. You know...a hacker?" Lucy clarified, in response to her aunt's confused look. "He made them some fake ID's. Hope asked me to go with her, but, uh, I'm grounded until eternity," she added, morosely.

"Is this something she does a lot? Sneaking out?" Sam asked, unable to disguise the hurt, disappointment and concern in her voice. She was angry that Hope would do something so stupid, and embarrassed that she'd been so blind to what was happening right under her nose.

Jeff understood what his wife was feeling, and found himself struggling with similar emotions. Nothing quite as humiliating as finding out your adolescent daughter had been playing you for a big, stupid sucker.

But Lucy's answer surprised them both. "I don't think so. She just told me about the fake ID's today. Honestly, I think the only reason she wanted to go was to hang out with Zach..." She stopped talking so abruptly, the adults heard her teeth chatter together as her jaw clamped shut.

Jeff, however, immediately seized upon what she'd said. "Zach? Who's Zach?" He shot a sideways glance in Sam's direction, as the headlights from the passing cars cast intermittent illumination upon her face, but she merely shrugged. She'd never heard the name before, either.

"Just some guy," Lucy said, miserably. "He's a junior, like Jason. Hope has a crush on him."

Jeff didn't respond. In his mind, Hope and Lucy were still five-year-old pixies with pigtails and stuffed bunnies. The news that Lucy was pregnant had shocked him almost as badly as it had his sister and brother-in-law. He knew, logically, that his baby wasn't a baby anymore. But the thought of some gangly teenage boy with raging hormones and bad skin touching her made him crazy. He knew how boys that age thought - he had been one, once.

When he remained mute, Sam picked up the conversational ball. "What do you know about Zach?"

"Not much. His family moved here last year, I think. He runs with a different crowd."

"Different how?" Sam prodded. She'd been the only adult in the family who hadn't completely freaked out when Lucy had announced that she was knocked up. Jeff had claimed that it was because Lucy wasn't her "blood" - which, frankly, she had found insulting. Hope and Lucy had grown up together, and she thought of the girl as a second daughter.

Yes, Lucy had made a mistake - but she was _fifteen_. Sam had made plenty of bad decisions at fifteen. Lucy was a sweet, smart kid - and so was her boyfriend, Jason. They were in love - in the naive way that only the very young and innocent could be - and they planned to raise their baby and build a life together. Perhaps the odds were against them, but weren't they always? She and Jeff had been older, but clearly no wiser, judging by where they'd ended up. Who were they to criticize?

The point was, if Lucy had reservations about Zach, Sam trusted her opinion and wanted to know why.

When her niece hesitated again, Sam reached between the seat and squeezed the girl's knee, gently. "Luce, all we care about right now is that Hope's okay. No one's going to get in trouble for anything you tell us, okay?"

Reluctantly, Lucy said, "Well, Hope and I have always hung out with a lot of the same people, you know?"

Sam did know. The girls had always been close. They were both above average students, and had played on many of the same sport teams.

"But Zach and his friends are kind of burnouts, you know? Nothing real bad," Lucy hurried to assure them, "just, like, skipping school, drinking, smoking. That kind of stuff."

Jeff's hands curled into fists as he bit back a retort. That sounded bad enough to him, but Sam's voice was calm and steady when she asked, "And Hope has been hanging out with them lately?"

"Yeah, sometimes. Like I said, I think she likes Zach. She doesn't hang out with them much when he's not around."

The car slowed, and then floated in the air for a moment before settling into the parking lot at the Radial. The hatches popped open as Sam gave Lucy's denim-clad knee a final, reassuring pat. "Thanks for being so honest with us, sweetie."

But Lucy was already angling her slim body out of the vehicle, squeezing between the upright front seat and the door frame. "Come on. I'll help you find them."

Sam and Jeff exchanged a bemused glance. Apparently, the teenager was taking charge of the situation. He tilted his head in surrender. "After you," he said, climbing out after the women and following them toward the entrance.

* * *

Lucy was already involved in a heated argument with the bouncer by the time Sam and Jeff arrived.

"Look, kid," he said, in exasperation, "no ID, no entrance. It's as simple as that." He scowled down at her from behind massive arms that could barely cross over the impressive bulk of his pectoral muscles, clearly outlined beneath his form-fitting t-shirt.

"I don't want to hang out in your stupid bar. I'm looking for my cousin," Lucy informed him haughtily, trying futilely to peer around his expanse, into the dim interior.

Sam came to a stop behind Lucy, resting a possessive hand on the girl's shoulder. "We're looking for our daughter," she told the disgruntled bouncer, in as polite a tone as she could muster. "Do you mind if we go in and take a quick look around?"

"Twenty credits for you two," he said, gruffly. "And she stays here," he added, glaring at Lucy. Though the girl stood about a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter, she glared right back. Under other circumstances, it would have been a comical sight.

"Did I mention that our daughter is underage?" Sam inquired, the implied threat lurking clearly beneath the mild query.

The large man, formerly an impassable barrier, now shifted his weight from one combat-booted foot to the other, uneasily. "Maybe I should get the boss."

"That might be a good idea," Sam agreed. As soon as he reluctantly relinquished his post and disappeared from sight, she said, "Come on, let's go." The three of them followed him into the building.

They made their way down a dark, narrow hallway that reeked of alcohol and sweat, and around a corner that opened into the main room. Booths with torn upholstery lined the far wall, and small, round tables that wobbled on uneven legs were scattered across the grimy floor, which was sticky with spilled beer. Every available seat was occupied. At the front of the space, instruments stood abandoned on the stage, the band apparently on a break. Pre-recorded, pulsing beats throbbed incessantly in the interim, loud enough that Jeff could feel the vibration through the leather soles of his shoes. A few patrons - either intoxicated, or merely uncoordinated - writhed on the small dance floor in front of the stage, but it was still largely deserted at this relatively early hour.

Sam leaned closer to the two of them, shouting to be heard over the music. "Let's split up. Lucy, see if you can spot anyone you know. Uncle Jeff and I will look for anyone who looks underage."

"A middle-aged guy cruising for underage girls.._.this_ won't end badly," Jeff muttered under his breath. He knew Sam couldn't hear the words, but she raised her eyebrows at his skeptical expression. He waved her off. "Fine. Let's go," he answered, loud enough to be heard this time.

Lucy walked to the right, following the aisle next to the booths and furthest from the bar. Jeff headed left to circle the bar, simultaneously hoping and dreading that he would find Hope perched on a bar stool, sipping a fruity cocktail. He imagined gathering her into a relieved embrace before grounding her for the rest of her life. Although, he was sure that she would consider being hugged by her father in front of her friends punishment enough.

Sam moved straight ahead, weaving her way between the tables, searching for anyone who looked out of place. The bar's clientele was primarily human, but she spotted a few asari, turians and salarians scattered about in clusters. That alone was a rare sight on Tiptree. Several patrons met her inquiring gaze briefly, and then did a double-take as they recognized her. She kept her eyes and feet moving, not wanting to be distracted from the task at hand.

She hadn't made it far before the hulk from the door reappeared in front of her with a much smaller man in tow. The second man had only an inch or two on Sam, with a protruding paunch that his expensively tailored clothes couldn't completely disguise. What was left of his dark hair was slicked back on his head - far more hair bristled through the open buttons at the neck of his shirt. Wire-rimmed glasses covered onyx eyes that were as impenetrable as the stone they resembled.

"Admiral Shepard. My name is Alexei. What an honor to have you in my humble establishment." He wasn't shouting, yet she could hear him clearly over the music. His voice was cultured, civil - and not at all sincere. Only a fool would mistake the bouncer for the more dangerous of this duo, and Sam was no fool. But she had dealt with many men like Alexei over the years, and she wasn't about to be intimidated, either. She met his steely gaze, evenly.

"I'm not here to cause trouble," she assured him, raising her voice as she leaned closer. This caused the bouncer to tense, but Alexei subdued him with a dismissive hand gesture. "I'm looking for my teenage daughter." Sam held out the comm with the message she had received earlier displayed on it.

After a brief hesitation, he removed his glasses and appeared to give the image serious consideration. He was shaking his head as he replaced the frames on his broad nose.

"I have not seen her, but I've spent most of the evening in my office in the back. Dmitri, have you seen this young lady?"

His seemingly permanent scowl locked into place, Dmitri gave the picture a much briefer perusal, before shaking his head in the negative.

"Do you mind if we just take a quick look around?" Sam inquired of the bar owner. "We were told that she was meeting some friends here."

"Not at all," Alexei replied, making a sweeping gesture with his arm. Sam was wondering what had caused the man's unexpected change in attitude, when he suddenly placed a companionable hand on her shoulder. Now it was her turn to tense, but Alexei merely moved closer and confided, "I have teenage girls of my own, so I know that they can make a parent sick with worry. In fact, I had a full head of hair just five years ago," he joked, stepping back and gesturing at his balding dome in self-deprecation. His half-smile wavered uncertainly, as if he were unaccustomed to wearing the expression, and the humor never quite reached his eyes. "But I assure you, we do not serve minors in my bar."

Sam sensed that despite whatever shady dealings went on here, Alexei was telling the truth about this. Or, at least, the truth as far as he knew. "We believe that they might have fake ID's. Quite convincing ones."

Alexei shrugged, looking genuinely distressed. "The harder we try to enforce the rules, the better the kids become at working around them, no?"

At that moment, Lucy appeared, dragging a resisting girl behind her by the wrist. "Aunt Sam! Aunt Sam!" They skidded to a halt next to the adults, Lucy's face feverish with triumph. Her companion looked ready to bolt at any moment, so Sam reached out and grasped her other forearm gently, but firmly.

"Hey there. What's your name?"

"Kristie," the girl replied, eyes darting about nervously, refusing to meet Sam's gaze.

"Kristie, I'm Admiral Shepard. I'm Hope's mom, and I'm looking for her. Have you seen her tonight?"

"No," Kristie answered, sullenly, pulling her arm from Sam's grasp to tug anxiously at the hem of a skin-tight mini-skirt that did little to cover her coltish legs.

"Bullshit!" Lucy exclaimed with wide-eyed indignation, jabbing the other girl in the arm with an emphatic index finger. "She told me she was meeting you here."

"Ow! Knock it off!" Kristie retorted, eyeing Lucy defiantly with kohl-rimmed turquoise eyes as she rubbed her bruised bicep. "I'm not lying! She was _supposed_ to meet us, but she never showed up."

Sam stood on tiptoe, seeking Jeff through the crowd. Catching his eye as he rounded the far end of the bar, she waved him over.

"What about some of your other friends?" Sam asked. "Do you think any of them might have seen her?"

"I don't know," the girl replied, dubiously, her gaze shifting uneasily from Lucy to Sam. "We've been together pretty much all night. Besides, if she were here, she'd be hanging with us." She glanced back at Lucy. "Right?"

Despite the fact that it seemed to be a genuine query, Lucy didn't respond. "What about Zach?" she demanded, instead. "Could she be with him?"

Kristie's mouth twisted, uncertainly. "Maybe. Now that you mention it, I haven't seen Zach in a while."

The club owner had been following the conversation back and forth, as if it were a tennis match. Now, Alexei asked, "What does this..._Zach_...look like?" He said the name as if it tasted bad on his tongue, his disdain for all teenage boys clearly written on his face.

"He's pretty tall," Lucy offered.

"Brown hair. Blue eyes. Kinda cute," Kristie added, blushing. "Mmm...he was wearing jeans. And a black shirt." Her unlined brow furrowed. "I think."

"That doesn't narrow it down much," Sam remarked. She was beginning to grow impatient with their lack of progress. If someone had taken Hope, time was of the essence.

Jeff approached the group just in time to hear a balding, bespectacled man barking orders. "Dmitri, ask the other bouncers and bartenders if they have seen a young man matching that description. Have someone check the restrooms and parking lot. I will help you search in here, yes?" he questioned, looking to Sam for approval.

She nodded, appreciatively. "Thank you for doing this. We're very grateful." Jeff nodded his agreement, although he wasn't quite sure what was happening, and the other two men moved away.

"What's going on?" Jeff yelled in his wife's ear as he inspected the scantily-clad girl with the unhappy expression standing next to Lucy. Her heavy make-up and revealing outfit couldn't completely disguise the fact that she was heartbreakingly young, and he wondered if her parents had let her out of the house looking like that.

Then he wondered when, exactly, he had reached the age where these kinds of thoughts had replaced simple lust when looking at a half-naked woman. Probably around the time his daughter had transformed from a child to a potential object of someone else's desire.

"This is Kristie, one of Hope's friends," Sam explained, nodding in the direction of the pouting pubescent. "Hope was supposed to meet them here, but she never showed." She turned back to the girls. "You guys search the tables and booths for any sign of Hope or Zach, and we'll make one more pass through the bar. Meet us near the entry." Lucy nodded as she once again took hold of Kristie's arm and dragged the recalcitrant girl away.

Sam planted a hand firmly between Jeff's shoulder blades to propel him through the crowd in the opposite direction. "We're looking for this Zach kid to see if he might know something more," she informed him, leaning over his shoulder from behind, her mouth close to his ear in order to be heard. Her warm breath skimmed his ear and neck in a pleasant rush.

"What does he look like?" Jeff called, turning his head in her direction, and she filled him in on the limited descriptors they'd managed to obtain. They did a quick circuit of the room before reuniting with Lucy and Kristie near the front hallway. Dmitri and Alexei rejoined them shortly after, shaking their heads.

"He's not here," the club owner stated, definitively.

"He _was_ here earlier, I swear!" Kristie insisted, petulantly, as if Zach's disappearance was an affront to her veracity.

Sam and Jeff exchanged another look. Hope had been planning to meet this boy, and now they'd both vanished. It couldn't be a coincidence. The reasonable explanation was that they'd gone somewhere to be alone together.

But that didn't explain the message…

"I'm sorry we couldn't be of more assistance," Alexei told Sam, his voice tinged with sincere regret. "I have some things I must attend to now. If there's anything else I can do, please...tell Dmitri to come find me."

"I will," Sam replied, extending her hand to the bar owner, who accepted it with a surprisingly gentle grip. "Thanks for your help."

With a nod, he returned to the back of the club, while Dmitri rumbled past them to reclaim his station at the front door.

"Kristie, what's Zach's last name?"

"Turner."

"Do you know either of his parent's first names?"

Kristie shot Lucy a desperate look, then they both shrugged, helplessly. In their world, parents were merely harbingers of embarrassment, to be avoided at all costs...unless, of course, they needed money, or to be driven somewhere.

"Do either of you have a picture of him, or know where I might find one on the extranet?"

Lucy shook her head, but Kristie frowned. "I don't think he liked having his picture taken. I took a group photo, once, when we were all hanging out, and he made me delete it. He's kind of weird about his privacy and stuff."

"Okay, girls. Thanks, anyway."

Overwhelmed by a sudden wave of frustration, Sam quickly retraced her steps down the dank hallway and stepped outside the club, taking a desperate gulp of fresh air as she emerged into the cool night. She closed her eyes as she bent over, hands on knees, and concentrated on just breathing. Once she'd collected herself, she straightened up and hit the button to recall James. He answered immediately, even though it was the middle of the night on Earth. She'd woken him earlier, but he was fully alert now. "What's going on? Did you find her?"

"No. But I need you to run a name for me," Sam explained, pacing away from the noisy entrance where music leaked from the interior and patrons loitered, talking and laughing.

"Okay."

"Zach Turner. He's registered at Tiptree High School. See if you can find someone who can access student records and pull whatever you can..."

"I'm on it," James interrupted. "I'll get back to you as soon as I've got something."

"Thanks." Sam broke the connection, struggling to corral her racing thoughts. Who was this elusive Zach, and what was his interest in her daughter?

A hand landed on her shoulder, making her jump. "It's just me," Jeff reassured her, as she spun around to face him. "Are you okay?"

Sam shook her head, unable to speak around the sudden lump in her throat.

"We'll find her," Jeff said, pulling her gently into his arms. They'd deliberately avoided anything more intimate than casual contact for many months - since _that night_ - and the embrace felt both strange, and completely natural. She clung to him as tears slid down her cheeks and soaked the shoulder of his shirt. "She's going to be okay," he murmured in her ear. "I promise."

She allowed herself the false comfort of both his words and his physical presence for a few more moments before summoning the strength to pull herself together. She couldn't afford to fall apart - not when Hope needed her.

Her comm buzzed with an incoming call, and she stepped back, wiping her eyes. It was James. "You've got something already?" she asked without preamble, adrenaline flooding her system.

"You're not going to believe this. One of our tech guys hacked into the school's system - which you never heard from me, by the way - and there was no Zach, or Zachary, listed in the entire school.

"_But_," he added, anticipating and cutting off her protest before she could voice it, "he scanned the logs and found evidence of tampering - deleted files. He restored a backup from earlier today, and we found your boy - along with a photo and enough info to run a full background check. I'm sending you the picture right now."

Sam asked Jeff to go fetch Lucy before she repeated, "From earlier today. So, that means the record was erased recently?"

"Yep."

"Huh." She called up the image James had sent just as Jeff reappeared with his niece. "Is this Zach?"

"Yeah, that's him," Lucy confirmed after only a cursory glance at the photo.

By now, Sam had a pretty good idea where this information trail was leading. "The photo's legit. So, who is he, _really_?" she demanded, hoping her authoritative tone would goad James into cutting to the chase. But he was unfazed by her officiousness, and refused to be rushed.

"Well, I can tell you who he _isn't._..there's no person in any database by the name of Zachary Turner matching the demographics in his school file. His whole identity is fake as shit, Lola. Our brainiacs ran his pic through some facial recognition program and got a hit on the Alliance's terrorism watch list. His real name is Zachary Moore...aka Zach Turner, aka Zach Harper."

The name Harper provoked a shimmer of recognition in the back of Sam's mind, though when she tried to pin it down, it quickly skittered away. In the meantime, James was still talking.

"Our friend Zach is 22, not 17, and he's just embarking on a promising career that began with arson and destruction of military property, and has recently escalated to association with known intergalactic terrorist factions."

"As well as kidnapping," Sam added, softly, no longer seeing any point to denying the obvious truth.

"Yeah," James replied, soberly. "Looks that way. Sorry, Lola."

"But _why?_" she cried in desperation. "What the hell does a terrorist want with Hope?"

"That, I don't know," James admitted. "But...Zachary Moore's parents are listed as Bradley Emmet Moore, deceased, and Jana Turner Moore. Her occupation is listed as bio-geneticist. And her last known employer," he paused for emphasis, "was Cerberus."


	4. Chapter 4

**Earth – 2187**

"It's coming, it's coming," Commander Samantha Shepard assured her nine-month-old daughter, Hope, who was wailing in consternation.

"See if she wants some cereal," Sam's fiancé and Hope's father, Lieutenant Jeff "Joker" Moreau, called from the kitchen where he was heating up a bottle for the hungry infant. "Or maybe a nice shot of whiskey," he muttered, cringing as a particularly ear-piercing screech erupted from the living room.

Scooping Hope up from the floor, Sam offered her a few circles of multi-grain cereal from the box on the kitchen table. Without even looking at it, the child snatched it from her mother's hand and immediately threw it on the floor.

"Guess not," Sam said with amusement, as she bounced the baby on her hip. Tears streaked Hope's cherubic cheeks and her fair complexion was bright red with annoyance at the delay in her mealtime.

In the midst of this chaos, there was a beep from the apartment entry. "It's open," Sam called, fully expecting the visitor to be James Vega or Steve Cortez, their former crew mates and current downstairs neighbors. _Probably making sure we're not murdering the kid, _she thought to herself, _although they should be used to the noise by now._

There was a pause, then another chirp from the door. Exchanging a curious glance with his future wife, Jeff gingerly snatched the bottle from the steaming water, set it on the counter to cool and, wiping his hands on a towel, went to open the door.

A woman he'd never seen before stood on the threshold. She was Sam's height, around 5'8" or so, with long, straight blond hair that was pulled back and tied at the nape of her neck, and bright blue eyes that blinked rapidly. She wore faded blue jeans and a black sweatshirt with ragged sleeves. Her hands fluttered at her sides as if unsure of where to land.

"Yes?" he said, raising his voice to be heard over the screaming, wondering if she had the wrong apartment.

"Um…hi," the visitor replied, peering past him through the open door - presumably, searching for the source of the clamor. "I'm looking for Commander Shepard?" The woman shifted her weight nervously from foot to foot, and Jeff instantly grew wary. The location of their residence wasn't publicly known, but this wasn't the first time that curiosity seekers had managed to find them. Most were harmless, but some of them were only tenuously acquainted with reality. He and Sam guarded their privacy zealously and didn't welcome interlopers. For what felt like the hundredth time, he cursed the lack of security in this ramshackle building. The electronic locks on the outer doors frequently malfunctioned, and the cameras had long ago been torn from the walls by desperate looters. They were usually able to count on James to play bouncer, but this intruder had apparently snuck past him.

"And you are?" he inquired with an edge to his voice. He was peripherally aware of Sam gliding toward the end table near the entry where a backup pistol was stashed, the baby still in her arms.

"Uh, well…I think I might be her mother."

* * *

Sam and Jeff were seated on the couch while the woman perched warily on a chair across from them, as if she might jump up and bolt from the room at any moment. Hope was sprawled on her back across Jeff's lap, playing with her toes and happily sucking from the bottle while eyeing the visitor curiously. The two sets of adults observed each other in silence, both sides waiting for the other to begin speaking.

"I guess you're probably wondering what I'm doing here," their guest finally offered.

Sam responded with a slight nod. _And why now? _she couldn't help but wonder. This had to be a scam, or a mistake. She was 33 years old, and her birth mother had never made any previous attempts to contact her. This woman had likely been attracted by her recent notoriety, and was either hoping to cash in somehow, or had honestly given up a baby and convinced herself that Sam had been that child. But despite her skepticism, her heart was racing. _Could it be…after all this time?_

"Well…my name is Allison Keller. I'm 50 years old. I'm from Chicago. When I was 16 years old, I got pregnant. My baby was born on April 11, 2154. I named her Kerry." She recited these facts in a nervous rush, as if they were all on an awkward first date - or a job interview.

_Kerry, _Sam mused. She tried to imagine herself as a Kerry - and failed.

Taking a fortifying breath, Allison forged ahead. "My parents were very religious, and when I got pregnant, they threatened to disown me. My boyfriend, Mike – your father – said that he loved me, and that he would take care of me and the baby. We ran away together. But he was only 17, and a high school dropout. The only work he could find was dangerous, and didn't pay much. It wasn't long before he started to resent me, and we started fighting all the time. After you were born, things just got worse. Neither of us was ready for the responsibility of a baby. One day, when you were about six weeks old, he went out for milk...and never came back."

Sam stared, rapt, as Allison bowed her head, a single tear trailing down her cheek. When she resumed her tale, her voice was thick with emotion. "I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't work; there was no one to look after you. It wasn't long before the little bit of money I had ran out. We had no food, and we were about to get evicted. Finally, I did the only thing I could think of – I bundled you up and left you at a hospital. But not the one where you were born – I didn't want to take the chance that someone would remember you and track me down."

She anxiously twisted her hands in her lap, seemingly lost in the memory. "I went home to my parents, and told them that I had given the baby up for adoption, which was what they had wanted all along. They accepted me back, but there was never a day that went by that I didn't think about you and pray that I did the right thing." She glanced up at Sam, hopefully. "I told myself that you were surely adopted by a loving family that was able to give you everything that I couldn't."

At these words, a surge of rage swept through Sam. The reality of her upbringing couldn't have been further from this woman's naive fantasies. Tamping it down, she inquired, evenly, "What hospital did you leave your baby at?"

"Northwestern. But you were born at Evanston."

Sam had no idea where she'd been born, but she knew that she had indeed been found at Northwestern. Still, most of Allison's story was hyperbole – the few facts she had included were a matter of public record, and Sam had certainly been in the news enough lately. Anyone could have gathered her limited biographical information quite easily.

Hope finished her bottle and sat up, squirming to be released from the confinement of the sofa. Jeff held onto her as she slid to the floor where she paused uncertainly, afraid to venture from the safety of her parents' sides with a stranger in the house. She gazed openly at Allison, who gave her a tentative smile. In response, Hope turned her face away, burying it against her mother's leg. Sam placed a comforting hand on her daughter's head.

When Jeff spoke for the first time, the suspicion was clear in his voice. "There's not much of a family resemblance."

Allison startled, as if she'd forgotten about his presence in the room, and then laughed, shrilly. "No, there's not. But she looks like her dad. I have a picture of him here somewhere." She dug around in a dingy cloth bag before emerging with an aging datapad that had seen better days. She pressed a few buttons before handing it to Sam, who held it out so that Jeff could see, too. The young man in the photo was handsome, but unsmiling. He had thick, wavy, ebony hair; a straight, regal nose; and piercing emerald eyes. There was no question that he and Sam had several physical traits in common.

The hand holding the datapad began to tremble, and Jeff glanced up at Sam, concerned. The events of the past year had sent her into a tailspin from which she'd only just begun to recover. The arrival of her long-lost mother on the scene was not a welcome turn of events. And something about this woman just seemed…off. Perhaps it was paranoia, but he didn't trust her.

For her part, Sam was reeling. She couldn't deny the similarities between herself and the person in the photo. She reminded herself that Allison could have chosen this picture for just that reason. There were plenty of people with dark hair and green eyes. That didn't make this man her father.

Still, her voice was shaking slightly when she said, "So, why are you here? Or, more to the point, why didn't you ever try to contact me before now?"

Allison shifted in her seat, looking uncomfortable. Meanwhile, having gathered her courage, Hope sank to all fours and crawled a short distance away to where her blocks were scattered on the floor. Keeping a watchful eye on the adults, she began to fling them about, noisily.

"I didn't know who you were. I'd heard the name Shepard before, of course, but it never meant anything to me. Was that your adoptive family's name?"

"I was never adopted," Shepard snapped, and Jeff placed a reassuring hand on her leg, just as she'd done for Hope a moment ago.

"What? But…"

"So, you heard about me on the vids and decided I was your daughter?" Sam challenged.

Allison wrung her hands, obviously agitated now. "No! I mean, yes, in a way – you're obviously very famous now. Everyone knows who you are. The more I heard about you, the more I put the pieces together and knew it had to be you. How many children could have been left at that particular hospital in that same week...or month, even?"

_Not many_, Sam had to admit. But that still didn't mean that this woman was the one who had left her there.

"What do you mean, you were never adopted?" Allison persisted. This information was clearly distressing to her.

"By law, the authorities are required to make a reasonable attempt to track down an abandoned child's birth parents before they're eligible for adoption," Sam explained, irritated by the woman's ignorance. "Otherwise, they might show up and try to take them back from the adoptive parents. I was placed with a foster family who planned to adopt me once the required amount of time had passed. But before that could happen, the wife got very sick, and eventually died. The husband couldn't care for me, as well as his own children, on his own, so he returned me to the system. By that time, I was almost two years old." Sam knew this story only because the social workers had told it to her. She had no clear memories of her first foster family. "Most people prefer to adopt infants. And apparently, I had trouble 'adapting to new environments.' I was placed in an endless series of foster homes until I finally ran away at the age of 15."

Allison looked aghast. "But…I gave you up so that you could have a better life! If I had known…"

Sam regarded her, impassively. She was willing to believe that her birth mother had harbored good intentions when she'd deserted her. But things hadn't worked out the way Allison had anticipated. Sam didn't feel it was her place to grant her absolution, even if she'd been inclined to do so.

"Then again, look at what you've become," Allison said, desperately. "Maybe everything happened the way that it did for a reason."

Sam was saved from having to respond by Hope's fussing. She stood and crossed the room to the cranky child, who was rubbing her eyes, tiredly.

"It's past her bedtime," Sam remarked, lifting Hope in her arms, and their guest immediately took the hint. She sprang from her chair, saying, "Of course. I should be going, anyway." Jeff stood, as well, and they both accompanied Allison to the entryway. The door slid open, but she hesitated before departing.

"She's beautiful, by the way," Allison said, referring to Hope. "She looks like you."

Sam smiled, as susceptible to compliments about her child as any new mom. "Really? I think she's the spitting image of her dad." She jostled the baby affectionately, and Hope gurgled in response. "But thanks for saying so."

"Sure." An awkward moment of silence passed, and then Allison said, "Okay, then." She turned to go.

She'd only taken a few steps into the hallway when Sam said, "So…are you staying somewhere nearby?"

Allison stopped and looked back at her. "Um, yeah. For a little while, anyway."

"Maybe we could get together and talk some more before you leave."

The older woman smiled. "I'd like that." She pulled out a pen and jotted something down. "You can contact me here."

Sam took the proffered information. "Okay. I'll be in touch."

"Great. Good night."

"'Night." Sam stood and watched until Allison disappeared into the stairwell. She felt Jeff's arm encircle her waist.

"You okay?" he asked, and she turned to him with a smile.

"Yeah, I'm okay." She nuzzled Hope, who squawked indignantly. "Let's get Miss Fussy Pants to bed."

"Right behind you."

But he lingered in the hallway for a moment longer after Sam and Hope had returned to the apartment, gazing uneasily toward where their uninvited visitor had departed. Then he stepped inside, deliberately locking the door behind him.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Sam placed Hope in her crib and flopped onto the bed next to where Jeff was already sprawled. "Can we go back to that carefree time when all we had to worry about was stopping the Reapers from committing galactic genocide? I swear it was a hell of a lot easier than keeping up with a nine-month-old child," she groaned.

"That's because she only has two gears – sleep and scream. And she doesn't do nearly enough of the first."

"Mmm. Speaking of which, tonight is your night to get up with her," Sam reminded him, snuggling into his side and pulling the blanket up around her shoulders.

"You should get changed before you do that," Jeff warned, wrapping an arm around her. They had both become hopeless narcoleptics since Hope's birth, routinely falling asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows. Waking up fully clothed and hopelessly disheveled was not an uncommon occurrence.

"In a minute," she yawned, both of them knowing full well it was a lie. They lay together, silently content, for a few moments before Jeff said, "So…do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm not sure what to say," she replied, honestly. After a beat, she continued, "Did you believe her story?"

"I don't know," he hedged. He was reluctant to voice an opinion before he knew what she was thinking, for fear of saying the wrong thing. This was a sensitive subject, to say the least. "I do question her motives, though."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, angling her face upwards to meet his gaze.

"Well, it's like you said – it's been 33 years. You haven't exactly kept a low profile this whole time. What caused her to make the connection now? And what does she want from you? Is it merely a desire to form a relationship, or something more?" He rubbed her back, gently. "You've been through so much in the past year, and you've been doing really well. _We've_ been doing really well. I don't want anything to jeopardize that."

Sam considered his words. She'd been badly injured in the fight against the Reapers – she and Hope had barely survived. Giving birth had put an incredible strain on her already overtaxed body, and she was just now recovering her strength and stamina after months of physical therapy. She'd also suffered from severe depression in the wake of Hope's arrival and the loss of several close friends. With the help of medication and counseling, her mental state had been improving, as well.

That being said, she understood Jeff's concern. She had her own doubts about her ability to cope with Allison's sudden appearance. But she wasn't prepared to summarily dismiss her just because the timing of her arrival was bad, either. This woman could be her mother – Hope's grandmother. The only family she'd ever known. _No, _she corrected herself firmly, _you have your own family now. The only family you'll ever need._

But still…

She gazed up into the worried eyes of the person she trusted most in this universe, and smiled reassuringly. "You're right. We don't know anything about her, or her motivations. I'll be careful. I promise."

"That's all I ask," he responded, lowering his head to kiss her lips, softly. Afterwards, Sam burrowed closer to him with a sigh, and in no time at all her breathing grew steady and even. But Jeff lay awake for a long time, holding her tightly, unable to shake the disquiet that gripped him.

* * *

Allison returned to the small, one bedroom apartment she'd been renting and tossed her bag down on the table. With shaking hands, she grabbed one of the cheap, plastic mugs from the cupboard and filled it with tap water. Tonight had been more challenging than she'd expected, and during the short walk home, her resolve had been wavering.

As if sensing her doubts, her terminal buzzed, signaling an incoming call. As expected, it was her benefactor. "You made contact tonight, as planned?" the woman asked, without preamble.

"Yes."

"How did it go?"

"Okay, I think. She was suspicious, but I think she believed me. Her fiancé seemed less convinced."

"That's to be expected. These aren't naïve rubes were dealing with here. And the pilot is bound to be cautious after everything that's happened. But none of that matters, because you have truth on your side. You'll see."

"You're sure that she's really my daughter?" Allison asked, for what seemed like the hundredth time. When this woman had first contacted her with the information that Commander Shepard was her long-lost daughter, she'd scarcely been able to believe it. And although it was true that Sam shared some physical traits with Mike, tonight's meeting hadn't done much to convince her. Shepard was confident, fierce, and intensely intimidating. Allison had never been any of those things.

"Quite sure," her anonymous patron assured her, patiently. "She was the only child abandoned at that hospital on that particular date. And the DNA test we conducted confirmed that she is your daughter."

Allison frowned. She'd seen the results of the DNA test herself, and they'd looked authentic. She'd voluntarily submitted her sample for comparison, but when she'd asked how the mystery woman had gotten Sam's sample, she'd merely replied vaguely, "All Alliance personnel are required to have a DNA sample on file." Allison could only assume that the test had been conducted without Sam's knowledge or consent, which meant that Allison couldn't offer it as proof of her identity without revealing the subterfuge. The idea that they'd invaded Sam's privacy made her feel anxious and guilty.

"She said that she'd contact me," Allison offered.

"Excellent. Give her some space and let her come to you. Things will be better that way," the woman confided with a reassuring smile. "You have enough money for now?"

"Yes." Allison flushed with embarrassment. She hated feeling like a charity case, but she hadn't had enough money to get from Chicago to London on her own, never mind for lodging and other expenses once she arrived. She was sure that her new friend's generosity would come at a price, but the temptation of meeting her daughter had been too strong to deny.

"Good. I'll be in touch," the caller said, unwittingly echoing Sam's earlier words. Then she was gone, and Allison turned away with a sigh. She set her glass in the sink and headed to bed. It had been an exhausting evening.

* * *

Jana Moore's sharp features broke into a calculating grin as she disconnected from the pathetically timid creature on the other end. How that woman had ever given birth to an icon like Shepard was beyond her comprehension, but she knew for a fact that it was true. Allison had contributed to Shepard's creation, and now she would unwittingly contribute to her demise. Jana's smile spread as she appreciated the symmetry.

"Mom?" her oldest son, Zachary, called. "The baby's crying."

"Coming, sweetheart," she replied, touching her fingertips briefly to a photo on the desk of herself and a handsome man with startlingly bright blue eyes.

"Everything is going exactly according to plan," she assured the image lovingly before turning away from the terminal in satisfaction. "That bitch is going to get _exactly_ what she deserves."


	5. Chapter 5

**Tiptree - 2189**

Sam stepped over the threshold of their new home with Hope in her arms, and then quickly set the squirming toddler down on the ground. The child happily waddled off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings as Sam turned to Jeff with a smile.

"It's finally done."

"Yep," he replied, pausing in the doorway to take in the sight with a satisfied grin. "Home sweet home."

Sam intertwined her fingers with his as they toured the house. Everything had been built on one level so that Jeff wouldn't be forced to navigate stairs. Steps weren't an insurmountable obstacle for him now, but they planned to stay in the house for the foreseeable future, and as one aged, the symptoms of Vrolik's Syndrome could be unpredictable. At one end of the house was a spacious kitchen with high-end appliances and plenty of counter space. The open floor plan included an adjacent dining room with a table for four, but expandable to seat twelve. Down a small step was a carpeted family/play room, filled with overstuffed, toddler-friendly, stain-resistant furnishings and an overflowing toy chest. Through an archway was a living room with a premium entertainment system, sleek leather furniture, a fireplace, and a fully-stocked bar.

Following the hallway toward the bedrooms, there was a guest/child bath on the right, with brightly colored walls and décor. The first bedroom on the left was a guest room, sparsely furnished with just a bed, dresser and small closet. The next room was Hope's. Various cartoon animals paraded around the perimeter of the yellow walls, hand painted (with the assistance of stencils) by her doting father. She had recently graduated from a crib to a toddler bed that sat low to the ground for safety reasons. Another overtaxed toy box sat in the corner. Tiny clothes were folded neatly in drawers, or hung in rows in the closet.

At the end of the hall was the master suite. Sam let out a sigh of appreciation as she took in the completed floor plan. The room was oversized, with plenty of square footage surrounding the king-size bed. It was painted in soothing jewel tones of blue and green. A decadent skylight graced the ceiling above the bed, reminiscent of Sam's former quarters on the Normandy. They each had their own walk-in closet with shelves galore. Across one end of the room ran a long marble vanity with double sinks and a sparkling mirror. Next to that was a bathroom with a walk-in shower and a separate jet tub large enough to fit the whole family, with room to spare.

They stood in the doorway, admiring the view, as Hope toddled past them to investigate the space. Sam rested her head on Jeff's shoulder.

"It's amazing."

"I know, huh?"

This wasn't the first time that they'd seen the house, of course, but now that they were officially moving in, it finally felt like more than a construction project; it felt like a home.

* * *

The relay in the Sol System had finally re-opened when Hope had been fifteen months old. Their original plan had been to merely pay a short visit to Jules and her family on Tiptree. But when they'd arrived, they'd felt the lingering shadow of the war completely fall away for the first time.

_Sam and Jeff relaxed at the kitchen table as Brian cleared the dinner dishes and Jules emerged from the kitchen with a pot of freshly-brewed coffee. The boys, Logan and Tyler, played a video game in the living room while Hope and Lucy babbled companionably, working diligently to empty the toy box of its contents._

"_The boys are so thrilled to have some time to themselves without their baby sister dogging their every move," Jules remarked as she filled their mugs with the dark, rich brew._

"_The girls do seem to get along well, don't they?" Sam agreed, raising the beverage to her lips and taking an appreciative sip._

"_You sure you guys can't move to Tiptree permanently?" Jules wheedled as she took her seat and Brian reappeared with a homemade chocolate trifle._

"_Are you trying to bribe us with dessert?" Sam asked, teasingly, as Jeff's sister began to spoon generous portions into individual bowls._

"_Maybe. Is it working?" Jules rejoined._

"_Absolutely," Sam replied, digging into the treat with enthusiasm._

"_Westerton is desperate for pilots," Brian remarked with false nonchalance to Jeff. "We've been running manufacturing around the clock, trying to keep up with the demand, but we still need people to deliver the product." Brian was a structural engineer for a company that designed and produced pre-fab building supplies. In a post-war economy, business was booming. "They're offering huge signing bonuses to experienced flight crew. Someone with your skills could pretty much name his price."_

_Jeff raised an eyebrow in Sam's direction. "I like the sound of that."_

_Sam nodded, but didn't respond. She and Jeff had been existing day-to-day for the past year, but the opening of the relay had prompted them to finally begin discussing their plans for the future. The Alliance had offered them both promotions and raises, along with their choice of assignments - an offer that she was inclined to accept. The Alliance had given her everything she had in her life - including Jeff and Hope - and she couldn't imagine doing anything else. What would she put on her resume, anyway? "Good at blowing things up?"_

_Jeff had disagreed with her assessment of her employability. "You've managed people, negotiated deals, collaborated with adversaries to achieve common goals - all skills necessary in business," he'd argued, although he was quite sure his words had fallen upon deaf ears. For his part, he was done with military life. He loved to fly, and he'd loved flying for Shepard. He was pretty sure that he wouldn't love flying for anyone else, nor being away from his family for weeks, or months, on end. He could train pilots, but he was tired of the bureaucratic bullshit. A civilian job where he could make loads of credits and work reasonable hours sounded just fine to him._

_Later that night, as they undressed for bed, Jeff broached the topic again. "It sounds like the job at Westerton could be a good opportunity for me," he suggested, keeping his voice low so he wouldn't disturb Hope, who was already asleep in the middle of the bed. His sister's family had already outgrown this house, so the three of them were sharing a room during their visit. Which would have been fine, if Hope hadn't been prone to flailing about until the two of them were left hanging off opposite sides of the bed by morning. They hadn't even laid down yet and their tiny daughter was already sprawled across three-quarters of the mattress._

_Sam surprised him by replying, "Yeah, it does." She shimmied out of her jeans, bending over to pull them off with her ass pointed in Jeff's direction, and he took a moment to appreciate the view. "You're sure you want out of the Alliance?" she asked, straightening up and pulling his attention back to the topic at hand._

"_I'm sure," he answered, removing his own pants and tossing them aside. "If you're not, then I understand, and I fully support your decision...but I'm ready to try something else."_

"_Fair enough." She sat on the foot of the bed clad in her t-shirt and panties, angled sideways to face him, and he settled next to her, wearing only his boxers. "You would consider moving to Tiptree?"_

_Jeff shrugged. "I don't see why not. The only family I have left is here. The place where I grew up is gone. Where else do I have to go? The real question is, would __**you**__ consider living here? I know that Earth is your home, and it may be in rough shape, but it's still there. This is a small agricultural colony, and quiet. Even if you were able to work from here, you might be bored as fuck."_

_Sam smiled. "I don't know - boring doesn't sound so bad, right about now. Earth will always be my home, but our place in London was never meant to be permanent. Tali's leaving for Rannoch soon. Wrex and Grunt are already gone. Jack's got her kids to look after, and Liara's still busy helping out at the archives. Even Steve is going to be deployed again soon. Maybe a change of scenery would be a good thing for us."_

_Hope shifted in her sleep, and they both froze in place, waiting to see if she would wake. With a sigh, she settled and grew still again._

_Jeff took Sam's hand, absently stroking her wrist with his thumb. "You're not just agreeing to this because it's what I want to do?"_

"_Maybe. But your arguments are persuasive, and I have no better suggestion. If you want to apply for the job, I think you should. And if they offer it to you, we'll give it a shot."_

"_Okay," he grinned, at once both excited and nervous about the decision - a fresh start, and all that it entailed._

"_Okay," Sam agreed, returning the grin, and sealing the agreement with a kiss._

* * *

As Brian had predicted, Westerton had offered Jeff a position on the spot, complete with a generous signing bonus and exorbitant salary. Orders had been coming in faster than the company could fill them, and finding people both qualified to deliver them and willing to live on - or commute to - Tiptree had proven to be no small feat. After having already extended their vacation far longer than they'd planned, it had been time to return to Earth and get their affairs in order.

Sam had met with the Alliance brass, and accepted a promotion to Admiral in the unfortunately named Recon, Intel and Planning division - equally coveted and mocked for its acronym, R.I.P. Her first official act as Admiral had been to recommend James Vega for promotion and assignment as her personal aide. Another condition of her continued enlistment had been that she could choose where she would be stationed. She'd received no resistance to any of her demands - the hierarchy had been willing to make whatever concessions necessary to keep humanity's greatest living legend amongst their ranks.

After that, all that had been left to do had been to collect their meager belongings and bid the ramshackle apartment where Hope had taken her first steps a sentimental, yet relieved, farewell. James had pleaded with them not to go, but once he'd realized they could not be swayed from their decision - and that he would still be communicating with Shepard about work-related matters on a daily basis - he'd glumly wished them adios and good luck.

Informing Allison had been difficult, as well. They'd seen her twice more in the six months since she'd first appeared on their doorstep. A simple DNA test had confirmed that she was who she'd claimed to be, but Sam had still been struggling to come to terms with that reality. For his part, Jeff had accepted Allison's presence in their lives, but remained skeptical of her motivations for contacting his fiancee. The Shepard-Moreau clan had taken a quick detour to Chicago to say goodbye in person, and Allison had taken the news stoically. Sam hadn't really expected her birth mother to protest, as their new relationship was still fragile, but the lack of objections had left her feeling both grateful, and oddly disappointed. Shortly after, they'd departed for their new home.

The three of them had initially stayed with Jules and Brian, until one of Jeff's new co-workers had put them in contact with a builder who'd been breaking ground on a new housing development. When they'd met with the contractor, he'd showed them plans for a beautiful planned community with plenty of open spaces, parks, lakes and schools. The homes were modular, but fully customizable, and built with privacy and security in mind. They'd immediately fallen in love with the idea, with one stipulation - that Jeff's sister and brother-in-law would agree to live nearby. Their current home had still been awaiting repairs to minor damage incurred during the Reaper attack, and it was too small for them, anyway. This would be the perfect opportunity for them to expand.

The couple had demurred at first, insisting that they couldn't afford the expense. Sam and Jeff had offered to provide the down payment, and they'd adamantly refused. But over time, Sam and Jeff had worn them down, explaining that they would only be repaying them for their generosity. They'd expounded upon the advantages of having family as neighbors, and the excitement of designing a new home to their precise specifications. Jules and Brian had eventually capitulated, and the dual construction projects had begun.

And now, nine months later, they were complete.

* * *

Sam watched as Hope grabbed hold of the handle on the bottom dresser drawer, and gave it a sharp yank. Since it was empty, there was no resistance, and it yielded without a fight. Caught off guard, the child toppled onto her diapered rear end. Rather than crying, she scowled fiercely at the offending piece of furniture. Jeff laughed, shaking his head.

"That child is you, through and through."

Sam turned toward him with a raised eyebrow. "Oh, I don't know. I see plenty of her daddy in her, as well."

"Oh, yeah? Like what?"

"She's stubborn as a mule," she teased.

"And you think that comes from _me_?" he asked, incredulously.

"Of course."

"I don't think so."

"Okay, maybe that one's from both of us. Let's see...she has a charming smile, and an infectious laugh."

"Oh, really?" he said, wrapping his arms around her waist. Sam responded by curling hers around his neck. "Tell me more."

"She has an insatiable curiosity, indomitable spirit, and a kind heart," she declared, caressing his cheek. Jeff's beard scratched her skin as he turned his head to kiss her palm.

"Still sounds more like you than me. Besides, I already bought you the house - there's no need for shameless flattery," he teased with a mischievous grin.

"_You_ bought _me_ a house?" she inquired, arching an questioning eyebrow.

"Can't you just let one go once in awhile?" he asked in mock exasperation, before continuing in a more wistful tone. "Sorry I can't carry you over the threshold."

"That's okay," she reassured him. "I think we're supposed to save that for the wedding, anyway."

Sam turned in his embrace as they watched Hope methodically open and close every drawer within her reach, peering into each intently, searching for only she knew what. Toys, maybe. Or hidden candy.

"I think we're going to be very happy here," Jeff whispered in Sam's ear, kissing the nape of her neck and causing a shiver of pleasure to race down her spine.

"So do I," she replied, angling her head back to meet his lips with her own.


End file.
